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“The three approaches were very dierent and covered almost all the important aspects of the subject.” The 5th Report FCSH 22 ABR 2015 18H – 21H Daniel Boll SISCOG Rui Diogo Serra AnubisNetworks Joaquim Baptista Consultant

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Page 1: The 5th Report - SIGDOCeurosigdoc.acm.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015... · the agile practices to suit the needs of an evolving team and evolving workload. Before tackling documentation

“The three approaches were very differentand covered almost all the important aspects of the subject.”

The 5th Report

FCSH22 ABR 201518H – 21H

Daniel Bofill SISCOG

Rui Diogo Serra AnubisNetworks

Joaquim Baptista Consultant

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Contents What happened? 3___________________________________________

Rui Diogo Serra 4____________________________________________About AnubisNetworks 4 Anubis / Bitsight and the communication process 5

Joaquim Baptista 8___________________________________________Effective Knowledge for Effective People 9

Daniel Bofill 11______________________________________________About SISCOG 11 Assembling the User Manual Puzzle 12

Public notes 16______________________________________________Alexandra 16 Ana Nascimento 17 Cátia Serrão 17 Rosa Dias 17 Inês Sousa 18 Sérgio Barros 18 Susana Duarte Martins 19 Anonymous #8 19 Anonymous #9 19 Anonymous #11 19 Anonymous #12 20 Anonymous #13 20 Anonymous #14 20 Anonymous #15 20 Anonymous #16 21 Anonymous #17 21 Anonymous #18 21 Anonymous #19 21 Anonymous #20 21 Anonymous #21 21

Comments by Joaquim Baptista 22_____________________________Don’t technical writers ever write in Portuguese? 22 How to train a technical writer? 22 What is the relevance of terminology management? 23 Is a technical writer a (good) project manager? 23 We would have to change our way of thinking… 23

Institutional support 24_______________________________________About EuroSIGDOC 24 About APCOMTEC 25 About CLUNL 26

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What happened? Looking back at what Technical Writers @ Lisbon has achieved in the last two years, we surprised ourselves with the interest and quality of the presentations at our formal events. However, only a handful of people attended each presentation, and few people attended all of them.

Professor Rute Costa accepted our challenge to reach new audiences, mostly by reusing old but good presentations, suitably updated. She invited us to talk to a mix of students at FCSH (the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the New University of Lisbon).

The multipurpose room 1 at the Research and Development building was practically filled to capacity, with over 40 people. The audience consisted of students of either Translation or Terminology Management, at different levels ranging from undergraduate to PhD candidate. Sadly, we failed to secure some photos.

As usual, the presenters were prepared to speak either in Portuguese or in English, depending on the needs of the audience. The decision to speak in Portuguese was made minutes before Rui started to talk.

The event started with Rute Costa welcoming everyone. Then, Joaquim Baptista briefly introduced the community Technical Writers @ Lisbon and explained how the attendees could intervene both by asking questions and by leaving comments in the public notes, which would be published in this report.

Rui Diogo Serra was the first speaker. As a product manager, he explained the complex processes used by Anubis Networks to develop and support its products, where different kinds of documentation play important roles.

Joaquim Baptista explained all the different tasks that a technical writer can do, actually a summary of the tasks he did during his work at Altitude Software. This vision forms the basis for his new consulting business.

Daniel Bofill explained the complexity of SISCOG products, especially their customization. He added details of the proposed project to systematize all documentation. The project was given the go ahead earlier in the same day.

We had several interesting questions after each presentation, although not the level of interaction previously seen in other formal events. Being the first presenter, Rui took most of the questions, enabling Joaquim and Daniel to tailor their presentations somewhat.

21 persons returned their public reports. The honesty of the comments is expected, and greatly appreciated. In fact, the main benefit for presenters is learning from the interaction. Again, the first presenter took most of the heat, while the last presenter got the most praise.

I would like to thank Rute Costa and all the attendees for their attention and their questions. We certainly felt welcome.

— Joaquim Baptista, [email protected] Technical Writers @ Lisbon — FCSH, April 22nd, 2015 — The 5th Report — / 3 26

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Rui Diogo Serra Rui Serra (Coimbra, 1980) is the Senior Product Manager for AnubisNetworks. He manages most of the portfolio for product marketing and technical documentation.

Professionally, prior to Anubis, Rui previously worked at Nokia Siemens Networks as Documentation Specialist, and before that, worked for IT and Training organizations, such as FCCN and Megadigital, mostly as a trainer and manager for Training documentation and collaterals.

Academically, Rui holds a degree in Computer Engineering (ISEC) and a Master in Marketing (ISCTE), besides others, such as an MBA (spec. Marketing), and the Cambridge CPE.

Rui is a past President for APCOMTEC (2008–2010) and a past member of several organizations related to Higher Education (Student unions, school boards and international federations).

About AnubisNetworks AnubisNetworks is an IT security company, founded in 2006, operating globally from offices in UK, Indonesia, Brazil and Portugal (Lisbon and Oporto).

Anubis is well known for its security cloud services and gateways, for Email and Web, and for its Threat Intelligence technologies, for real-time insight on botnet malware and Reputation and Fraud management.

AnubisNetworks is focused on Telco Operators, Service Providers, with notable customers, such as Vodafone global, British Telecom and all the Operators from Portugal, along with many others, from financial and government sector.

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Anubis / Bitsight and the communication process

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Joaquim Baptista Joaquim starts 2015 as an independent consultant. He draws on his extensive experience to offer effective solutions with the sophistication that typically requires a whole team of consultants.

Joaquim Baptista started the documentation team at Altitude Software in 1997. Under his leadership, the team wrote documentation and helps from scratch, then grew to manage translations in 1999, develop a proprietary XML-based documentation system in 2000, champion a company-wide wiki in 2003, adopt the XML DITA standard in 2005, develop training materials in 2006, recreate topic-based writing in 2009, create technical comics in 2013, and conduct ethnographic interviews in 2014.

He adopted and refined agile practices since 2004, and published the 2008 practices at ACM SIGDOC’08 under the name uScrum. He continuously adapts the agile practices to suit the needs of an evolving team and evolving workload.

Before tackling documentation he worked as trainer, programmer, system administrator, and academic researcher.

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Effective Knowledge for Effective People

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Daniel Bofill Daniel Bofill is a technical writer at SISCOG.

Born and raised in South Africa, he moved to Portugal in 1994 and found that his knowledge of English created the perfect opportunity to learn and explore the new culture, meet new people and share and develop ideas while learning the new language.

Starting off as a technician for plastic card personalisation machinery, his enthusiasm for understanding why things work the way they do quickly led him to coordinate the production and logistics of smartcard loyalty programs. After a short incursion into home design and teaching, he returned to the technical world where he led a team of specialised technicians in taking care of card issuance centers for the banking industry and access control systems.

Having documented and translated countless machine and configuration manuals, he now works hard to create and deliver software user manuals. He continues to teach English and is always up for a game of tennis.

About SISCOG SISCOG is a software company that provides decision support systems for resource planning and management in transportation companies, with special experience in the field of railways.

Founded in 1986, SISCOG uses a combination of Artificial Intelligence and Operational Research technologies, resulting in state-of-the-art optimisation software.

SISCOG addresses the biggest challenge of companies nowadays — productivity.

The business drivers for increased competitiveness and the more stringent customer demands for punctuality, product flexibility, and network expansion are the main issues for companies who are expected to meet these requirements while cutting operating costs and maximising revenues.

By understanding transportation companies needs, regardless of their size or complexity, and by speaking their language, SISCOG offers planners and company executives the tools to quickly, effectively, and accurately optimise their resources and daily work.

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Assembling the User Manual Puzzle

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Public notes All participants received a questionary with the following questions:

• Ideas, doubts, comments, reflexions?• What did you like the most?• How could we improve? What could we do

differently?

The participants were promised that their answers would be published in a final public report.

The following pages have the notes returned by 21 participants, transcribed or translated to English.

The anonymous notes correspond to participants that did not check the “publish?” box.

Alexandra Email? [email protected]

Comments?

• Nice presentation and very useful information. Is it possible to “grow” professionally in the Technical Writing area?

• The first presentation wasn’t clear enough and hard to understand.

• The second presentation was clear, very useful and nice in terms of content and information.

• The third presentation was also extremely good, the “communication” was very eased and comfortable ro listen to — not too “heavy”. Very realistic way of thinking and communicating! Useful — nice work!

Like? The clear language used.

Improve? Use less technical terminology, as part of the audience is listening this for the first time (or explain the terms) (first presentation). You should have given more technical examples.

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Ana Nascimento Comments?

Presentation by Rui Diogo Serra: The discourse used was too hard to reach. The powerpoint in English is a barrier to comprehension, even for fluent English speakers. It made it harder to follow the argument. I think nothing would be lost in deepening what is really done by the Company. It is understandable that there is a list of procedures related to quality but we know than, in practice, that does not happen at 100%; many processes are “burned” in-between, both for lack of time and for lack of monetary resources. I should also add that it would be interesting to learn some real professional experience. At the beginning it was limited by saying that technical writing is not just writing technical texts… what it is then?

Presentation by Joaquim Baptista: the small flyer distributed before the presentation was extremely interesting and funny — just like it says, it helps to build the knowledge and captures attention. The powerpoint was simple but very engaging. Very prompt to answer and be coherent + practical in his answer. The explanation of what is really a technical writer was concise, simple, and perceptive to anyone in the room, in my view. One can see that he thinks in the people listening to him, and the discourse is simple and intelligible in a funny but assertive way.

Sadly I could not attend the presentation of Mr. Daniel.

Like? The small attention before the presentation of Mr. Joaquim Baptista in the form of the informative flyer. Captivating at first sight and very interesting to read.

Thanks to Mr. Joaquim Baptista for giving me hope for my future with what he said about CVs.

Improve? Harmonize the technical terms to make them accessible to laypersons in the public. Explain exactly what is technical writing.

Cátia Serrão Email? [email protected]

Improve? Have the powerpoints in Portuguese to contribute to a Portuguese thinking about technology.

Rosa Dias Email? [email protected]

Comments? Everything that was said reflects my working experience.

My doubts and lack of experience concern the tools and software to create the templates and organize the information and documents.

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Like? The three approaches were very different and covered almost all the important aspects of the subject.

Inês Sousa Comments?

• The first presentation was good but the business and what a product manager does wasn’t quite clear. He focused a lot more on how the company works.

• The second presentation was great, I love that it had illustrations to capture the public’s attention, it was interesting and really focused on the theme of technical writing, what it is, how it should be in order to respond to every situation/problem.

• The last presentation was the best one, the presenter connected with the audience, he was funny and we wanted to listen, his language was easier to understand and more concise and clear than the others.

Like? The last presentation was what I liked the most. I actually understood everything that was explained. I could visualise its practical applications.

Improve? The presentations were good, but I think they could be a little more visual and you could have given some practical examples.

Sérgio Barros Email? [email protected]

Comments?

• What is the relevance of terminology, for example, managing glossaries or databases, in the overall set of tasks of the technical writer?

• Is there some procedure or training to turn an individual into a technical writer in the context of a Company, or a newly hired technical writer is just immersed in the working environment?

• What would be the learning curve for someone who want to become a technical writer, having a background in Linguistics and Terminology and a professional experience as a linguist, translator, and fellow terminologist?

• Is a technical writer a (good) project manager?

Like?

• I liked to hear about the possibility of working as a technical writer.• I enjoyed the last presentation very much. Excellent!

Improve? It might have made sense to invert the order of the presentations, that is, from the most theoretical to the most practical.

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Susana Duarte Martins Email? [email protected]

Like? The second presentation, because it focused more objectively in technical writing. The third presentation was also interesting, because it showed the importance of reusing information and the respective financial consequences.

Anonymous #8 Comments? I liked the third presentation very much (SISCOG) because the presenter referred his academic and professional “background”.

Like? The contents and organization of the presentations, especially the third presentation (SISCOG).

Improve? Clarify acronyms and technical terms.

Anonymous #9 Comments?

Presentation by Rui Diogo Serra:

• I did not quite understand the work he does.• Good presentation.• Should try to use less foreign words when presenting in Portuguese.

Presentation by Joaquim Baptista:

• Good communication.• Good presentation: clear and concise.

Presentation by Daniel Bofill:

• Excellent communication (funny and with attention-capturing jokes).• Excellent presentation.• Very clear speaking and explaining.

Anonymous #11 Comments?

All this information was very interesting although the time was very short; however we gained some knowledge with your experiences and competencies in this area of domain or speciality; quite advanced technologies.

Thank you very much.

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Anonymous #12 Comments?

• The first presentation was very compact and not very clear. A lot of information but the communication did not seem very effective.

• The second presentation was very interesting and more enlightening. “Friendly” communication demonstrating assuredness and professional knowledge.

• The third presentation — Very graphical, presented casually and with a sense of humor. Good communication skills. Very interesting and very practical presentation.

Like? The third presentation.

Anonymous #13 Comments? Sorry! No comments! Nevertheless I enjoyed it. Good work.

Anonymous #14 Comments?

The linguistic component has a very secondary role in this area, for a student of translation and considering our curriculum, technical writing would be a plan C. Working on the creative part and elaborating the characteristics of the Portuguese language, going into this are would be counterintuitive in some sense. It is good to know that there is another possible area for working, however we would have to change our way of thinking, and that would take time and training.

Like? I thought it interesting that three persons in the same area have such different approaches. Although, I confess, I did not empathize with all of them, it is nevertheless interesting.

Improve? Lacking context in the area and the real methodology of working, I think that it does not make sense to “opine” about the excellent work of the colleagues.

Anonymous #15 Like? The simplicity of the second presentation. It was obvious that it was a technical writer who was speaking because everything was “to the point”, accurate and precise. Explicit slideshows.

Improve?

• It was somewhat difficult to relate the first presentation to the technical writing theme.• You could also use more Portuguese words and phrases instead of the English ones

when there’s equivalents.

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Anonymous #16 Comments? I think that all the presentations were very interesting, however they differed in content and way of presentation. I think that the last presentation stood out through its dynamism, besides the second one by its explanation.

Like? Resources used (powerpoints) and presentation of companies that I did not knew.

Improve? More attention to the target audience.

Anonymous #17 Like? I liked very much to learn more about the profession of technical writer and all the suggestions were useful to better structure my academic curriculum in relation to the needs in this market.

Anonymous #18 Improve? The first person that did the presentation said multiple times “oh, this part doesn’t matter”. I think that, in a language perspective, it is not appealing to say something doesn’t matter. You can say it’s not as relevant as the other information that is being presented.

Anonymous #19 Comments? Why did you use English for your presentations? I get the whole idea of reusing material but you had a Portuguese audience and not everyone speaks English…

Don’t technical writers ever write in Portuguese?

Like? Learning about technical writing. I had this vague and fuzzy idea of what it might be, but the three presentations were really useful career-wise and from a corporate perspective.

Improve? It would have been interesting to see some examples of technical writing, i.e., a short paragraph for example. I know this wasn’t a technical writing course but you were talking to “language people” and we do like to see language in action.

Anonymous #20 Like? I just love the all presentations. It was very reach and clear.

Anonymous #21 Comments? Vast field of application. A matter of management culture?

Like? Integrated and pragmatic vision. Improve? Small companies?

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Comments by Joaquim Baptista The public comments raised some interesting questions. I like the honesty of the public questions, and I will try to be equally honest in my public answers.

Don’t technical writers ever write in Portuguese? Several comments criticize the slides in English, or the fact that presenters used some English terms. I was quite surprised. In fact, we decided to present in Portuguese in the last few minutes before the first presentation.

Lisbon has become a wonderfully multicultural city, and I have met many foreigners working or studying in Lisbon. Successful Portuguese companies typically import or export, and English is often the common language that enables such commerce. That has certainly been the case for Anubis Networks, Altitude Software, and SISCOG.

Even if your main skill is the Portuguese language, you still have to communicate with others. Your colleagues and partners are all over the world. Over the years, my own team at Altitude Software had people with very different backgrounds.

On the other hand, Sandra Fisher-Martins is trying to promote plain language in Portuguese through her company Português Claro. She deserves all our support.

How to train a technical writer? I do not know any graduate or undergraduate course in Portugal on Technical Writing (or, more generally, Technical Communication). I know that Rosário Durão proposed a post-graduate certification program at FLUL that was approved. However, the course did not open.

FCSH has a masters course on Communicating Science. Several Universities have modules on Technical Communication, for example focused on writing reports.

At Altitude Software, I trained twenty persons over the years, using books, presentations, and coaching. The rhythm of learning depended on the opportunities for working in different projects. However, since new hires were learning both technical writing and Altitude Software products, it is hard to separate one learning curve from the other.

From my hiring experience graduates from Language and Literature generally lacked (years ago) the ability to articulate and write down complex ideas. However, I hired two persons with the right skills, coming from Translation and from English Literature (from an American University).

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What is the relevance of terminology management? Terminology management becomes more important when a company has several writers, especially when texts are translated. Technical editors will be in a position to care more about terminology, typically by taking care and enforcing a style guide.

Is a technical writer a (good) project manager? A technical writer naturally develops a good understanding of several points of view, including the customer. That ability facilitates the communication required to lead a project to a good conclusion.

We would have to change our way of thinking… I expect a University course to provide a solid background for a professional career. However, you should by no means expect the course to provide all necessary knowledge.

At the very least, the world is quickly evolving around us. It is very possible that your job five years from now has not been invented yet. So, learn to evolve over time. Learn to learn.

Also, try reading science fiction: you may be surprised on how useful it can be at making you consider different alternatives and viewpoints.

As an alternative, read anything by Tom Peters. He questions every assumption in his search for excellence, and offers amazing examples.

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Institutional support About EuroSIGDOC EuroSIGDOC is an ACM SIGDOC European chapter.

SIGDOC is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group (SIG) on the Design of Communication (DOC).

EuroSIGDOC is a group of researchers and practitioners wanting to pursue the SIGDOC mission in a European context.

Like SIGDOC, EuroSIGDOC focuses on the design of communication as it is taught, practiced, researched, and conceptualized in various fields, including technical communication, software engineering, information architecture and usability.

Since 2010, EuroSIGDOC sponsored the following events:

• OSDOC 2010 — Workshop Open Source and Design of Communication (eurosigdoc.acm.org/osdoc2010);

• OSDOC 2011 — Workshop Open Source and Design of Communication (eurosigdoc.acm.org/osdoc2011);

• OSDOC 2012 — Workshop Open Source and Design of Communication (eurosigdoc.acm.org/osdoc2012);

• OSDOC 2013 — Workshop Open Source and Design of Communication (eurosigdoc.acm.org/osdoc2113);

• ISDOC 2012 — Workshop Information Systems and Design of Communication (eurosigdoc.acm.org/isdoc2012);

• ISDOC 2013 — International Conference on Information Systems and Design of Communication (eurosigdoc.acm.org/isdoc2013)

• ISDOC 2014 — International Conference on Information Systems and Design of Communication (eurosigdoc.acm.org/isdoc2014)

Several seminars were sponsored by EuroSIGDOC (eurosigdoc.acm.org/seminars.html), and now the TWL (Technical Writers @ Lisbon).

— EuroSIGDOC Board

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About APCOMTEC

APCOMTEC: uma associação interdisciplinarDesde a sua criação, em 2006, que a APCOMTEC, Associação Portuguesa para a COMunicação TECnica,com sede na UA, tem vindo a promover e divulgar a prática profissional, formativa e de investigação emComunicação Técnica (CT), em Portugal. Nos últimos anos, procurou dar a conhecer o seu trabalho edivulgar esta área, recente em contexto nacional, tanto através da formação, da organização de eventos,das redes sociais e da Newsletter

Missão e objetivosA APCOMTEC tem por missão o desenvolvimento, a promoção e a representação da Comunicação Técnicaem Portugal, bem como dos respetivos profissionais.Dos objetivos dos atuais órgãos sociais fazem parte o diálogo próximo entre o meio académico e o meioempresarial, a promoção da interdisciplinaridade inerente à CT, nomeadamente com a Tradução, aTerminologia, a Engenharia Informática e a Divulgação de Ciência, bem como o fortalecimento da presençae o reconhecimento da CT a nível nacional e europeu. A APCOMTEC é associada da TCeurope – associaçãoque representa os interesses da comunidade de Comunicação Técnica a nível europeu.

O que temos feitoEnquanto agente divulgador e mediador de experiências,conhecimento, informação, produtos e serviços sobre e deComunicação Técnica, a APCMTEC tem dinamizado eventos deinformação e formação em CT, nomeadamente através das suasJornadas e do Colóquio Internacional de Comunicação Técnica 2012.

Foram três as Jornadas já organizadas em diferentes pontos do país,desde 2011: no DLC/UA, sobre Comunicação Profissional e Designde Informação, na ESTGA, dedicada à Comunicação Profissional ePlaneamento na Documentação Técnica, e no ISCAP, coorganizadacom o Centro Multimédia de Línguas (CML), sob o tema“Comunicação Técnica: como traduzir negócios em sucesso”.

O objetivo destas Jornadas consistia em reunir especialistas eprofissionais, na área da Comunicação Técnica (CT), e dar aconhecer o seu trabalho a futuros especialistas, indo assim aoencontro dos próprios objetivos da APCOMTEC.

Quanto ao Colóquio Internacional de Comunicação Técnica 2012,constituído por um Pré-colóquio sobre «Sustentabilidade emComunicação Técnica» e o Colóquio TCeurope 2012 «TechnicalCommunication and Readership», este teve lugar no Departamentode Línguas e Culturas da U. Aveiro em abril de 2012.

O Pré-colóquio permitiu debater acerca da estreita relação entre aComunicação Técnica, a Terminologia, a Tradução e a EngenhariaInformática, que inegavelmente contribui para um desenvolvimentomais preciso, adequado e eficaz, assim como para a criação dedocumentação mais personalizada e intuitiva.

Quanto ao Colóquio TCeurope, o seu objetivo foi fornecer uma visão geral do estado-da-arte de um tópicotão vasto e desafiante como é o público-alvo em Comunicação Técnica, bem como explorar os diferentese emergentes meios de comunicação aqui utilizados, trocar informação relativa à comunicação técnica eàs suas aplicações, avaliar as vantagens e desvantagens dos diversos formatos de edição e produção,assim como as utilizações, as necessidades e as exigências provenientes da e-sociedade.

Este conjunto de eventos contribuiu certamente para o crescimento da associação, tanto a nível do númerodos seus associados como da projeção que conseguiu dar a esta área recente do conhecimento, tendo-seeste último facto refletido nos inúmeros contactos de qualidade que a APCOMTEC teve com as empresase instituições, essencialmente a nível nacional.Já a nível europeu, o esforço da associação em manter a ligação à TCeurope tornou-se particularmenteprofícuo aquando da organização conjunta do evento internacional antes mencionado, assim com nasreuniões de trabalho subsequentes, tendo a última acontecido em Bruxelas, em abril de 2013, onde aAPCOMTEC esteve presente.

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About CLUNL Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CLUNL) is a research unit that has as its main objectives the advancement of research in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, the advanced training of researchers and the promotion of the publication of scientific data in those domains concerned with the nature and structure of languages and texts.

This unit is financed by FCT.

The Centro de Linguística of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CLUNL) was founded in 2000, in the sequence of a restructuring of the Centro de Estudos Comparados de Línguas e Literaturas Modernas (CEC). CEC, founded in 1979 and financed by the Instituto Nacional de Investigação Científica (INIC), integrated the Núcleo de Estudos de Linguística Contrastiva (NELC), whose members advocated the existence, in FCSH, of a research program in Linguistics. 

At the Universidade Nova, the planning of the early research work in linguistics began in 1975, in the area of Línguas e Literaturas Modernas (Modern Languages and Literatures), thanks to the interest of Professors Maria de Lourdes Belchior and Maria Emília Marques. The theoretical approaches of the team members (comprising the domains of Sociology, Computer Sciences, Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, and Language Teaching, within a contrastive and interdisciplinary approach) were presented at the Primeiro Encontro Nacional para a Investigação e Ensino do Português, in 1976.

In 1979, NELC  published, in the first issue of Letras Soltas, a number of articles integrating some of the domains that would later be developed in CLUNL: Lexicology, Text Theory, Theoretical Issues and Pedagogical Praxis, branching into Sociology of Education and Bilinguism. The second issue of Letras Soltas was edited by Professor Maria Henriqueta Costa Campos, who pioneered publishing in the domains of enunciative semantics and relational grammar.

Since its creation, in 2000, the work developed at CLUNL has made an important contribution to linguistic studies in Portugal in the areas of Acquisition (L1 and L2), Discourse Analysis, Text Theory, Lexicography and Terminology, Syntax, Morphology and Historical Linguistics. CLUNL's present research is based on different conceptual and theoretical models. This characteristic is a reflection of the work developed in the Unit throughout the years and it is also what gives the Unit its identity.

Between the years 2000 and 2006, CLUNL was directed by Teresa Lino. Maria de Lourdes Crispim was director between 2006 and 2010, together with Maria Lobo, Fernanda Menéndez and Maria do Céu Caetano.

Previous directory boards have established CLUNL as a competitive and relevant Research Unit, which is attractive to both national and foreign young researchers.

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